KMac: Thank you. I thought what I’d do, to talk about the Jewish Question right now, [is to update the Preface] I wrote to the paperback edition of Culture of Critique back in 2002. There are a lot of different aspects to the Jewish Question. I think it’s a complicated, multifaceted kind of thing. I thought I’d just update what’s happening, how has Jewish power and influence have changed in the past ten years.

The first thing I talked about was Jewish domination of the media. I was talking about what percentage of the big companies and people creating content and so on are Jewish. That hasn’t changed. So we still see a huge percentage of anti-Christian messages, anti-White messages, anti-stereotyping messages about Blacks, Mexicans, and so on. So certainly there hasn’t been any positive change in the past 10 years as far as the media goes.

The other issue I talked about that’s related to that is that Jewish organizations were taking a very large role in trying to censor the internet. Seeing the internet is the way of the future, it’s probably the biggest weapon we have these days, I was saying in this area that the Jewish organizations have not really gotten what they want. The First Amendment is a major barrier to them. If you look at other countries of the world — in Australia, Europe, and so on — Jewish organizations routinely support laws against free speech: Holocaust denial laws, and all kinds of hate speech laws, and so on. They’ve not really been able to do that in America, although a recent hate crime law in Congress was pushed by the ADL. They are trying certainly to go in that direction, but I think we have a very strong Supreme Court at this point. It’s a 5 to 4 majority. If Obama gets another appointment, I’m not sure at all that that would hold.

The other thing I talked about was the rise of the political Right in Israel. In Israel now you’ve got probably the most racialist, right-wing government in its history. As Mark [Weber] was talking about, you have apartheid. You have ethnic cleansing. You have all these laws that discriminate against the Palestinians. You have these fundamentalist settler groups that are very mainstream, not at all fringe elements in Israeli society; they are very much a political power; they are actually the power behind the present situation within Israel.

We also talked about the power of the Israel Lobby in the United States, as Mark was also mentioning. Since 2002 we’ve had the book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. I think that was a very major event. But, at the same time, we still have the war in Iraq; we’ve got huge pressure now for some kind of dealing with Iran, as Mark was saying when Benjamin Netanyahu came to America he had 29 or 30 standing ovations. Just this summer, 81 members of Congress went on junkets to Israel, paid for by a Jewish activist organization. So Congress is still very much Israel-occupied territory, you might say. I don’t think that has changed.

I also talked about the ADL as a sort of policeman organization. It was discussed how they were favoring these open immigration laws. They were congratulating Germany because they got rid of biological descent in immigration. They thought that was just wonderful. Of course, with Israel it’s been different.

Since 2002 it’s become very clear that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a sort of de facto Jewish organization. You look at where the money comes from, who the main officers are, its policies and so on. It is certainly very similar to mainstream policies of the Jewish community. It really is a Jewish activist organization.

These organizations are very well-funded. Approximately 30 to 50 million dollars per year are going into them. Several articles on VDare have talked about the huge slush fund that the Southern Poverty Law Center has: close to 200 million dollars now. They are extremely well-funded, and all that money is being used against us. There are trivial amounts of money that are being channeled towards White causes. This is one of our biggest problems, that the anti-White movements are funded just lavishly, whereas we are scrapping.

And of course, the fact is that right now things are sort of on autopilot. It’s not like they’re really worried about anything. If things really got bad, you would see huge amounts of money pouring in to organizations like the SPLC, the ADL, and other organizations of the Left.

The other thing that was talked about is the role of Jews in Communism, which has sort of been papered-over. Certainly Jews were the backbone of the Left in the 20th century, they had a huge role in Communism in the Soviet Union, and that’s pretty much been papered-over. Since I wrote that in 2002 we’ve had books by Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, discussing the role of Jews in the Soviet Union, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together, both excellent books that provided an even firmer foundation for the idea that Jews played a prominent, critical role in the Soviet Union, at least up until the end of World War II.

And yet again, that kind of thinking has not really penetrated into the popular consciousness. You don’t see academics talking that way, and it’s not in the media. Again, that’s one of the roles of the ADL and the SPLC: to absolutely and very rigorously police the media. These are the policemen out there. They are very closely integrated with the police departments, with the FBI, all levels of the federal government. This is a very major sort of Jewish power in America.

I also talked about the culture of the Holocaust as being pervasive. Pervasive in the school system. Pervasive in the media. There are so many movies being made with those themes every year. The Holocaust has become an instrument of Jewish ethnic interests, intended to create moral revulsion at violence against ethnic groups, prototypically the Jews, but also as an instrument to silence opponents of high levels of non-White immigration into Western countries. It’s been institutionalized as an American icon. This is entirely the result of Jewish influence on culture, in the media, and the academic world.

One issue that is pretty new is that in Europe we have seen the rise of nationalist parties. I think this is a very, very encouraging sign. I think if the revolution comes, and I think it will come eventually, it’s going to start in Europe. You see now the rise of parties that are explicitly anti-Muslim. They’re certainly not talking in racialist terms. These parties have tried to make alliances with pro-Israel politicians. Most of them are very strongly philo-Semitic. Gert Wilders is a paradigm in that regard. He’s been to Israel a number of times. He’s very pro-Israel, and yet he’s anti-immigration. So far, it does seem he’s been condemned by the organized Jewish community.

The organized Jewish community is not going for the idea that supporting Israel is enough. They basically want to have their cake and eat it too; that is, they want to have high levels of immigration, even if that includes some Muslims. They want a housebroken Islam, an Islam that won’t be too concerned about that’s going on in Israel, that won’t be terrorists and all that. But they are moving ahead in that direction. The organized Jewish community is not supporting the parties in Europe that are against Muslim immigration at all. I think only about 2% of Jews are doing this.

But this is definitely a new issue, and there are some politicians in Israel that have gone for this, because they see Israel as being more and more isolated. You’ve got the BDS movement — the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement — right now, which has been pretty effective. Israel I think does feel more under threat than ever before. They feel isolated, certainly. It’s very common in Europe. Actually, one of the aspects of the slaughter in Oslo was the fact that the party being attacked was very left-wing, very anti-Israel. So this is pretty common.

It’s pretty mainstream in Europe to be anti-Israel. They’re honest leftists. They can see the ethnic cleansing. They can see the apartheid. And it bothers them. Now, of course that’s different from us. We’re honest Rightists, and we want our own nationalism. But at the same time, that is one of the important trends.

I guess that’s the main way that I see what the Jewish Question is today. I would say that in general — this is the way I concluded in 2002 and I think it’s still true today — the present Judaized cultural imperium in the West is maintained by basic thought control propagated by the mass media and extended to self-censorship by academics, politicians, and others well aware of the personal and professional consequences of crossing the boundaries of acceptable thought and behavior. It’s maintained by zealously promulgated, self-serving, essentially false theories of the history and nature of Judaism and the history and causes of anti-Semitism.

The fact is that Jewish populations have always had tremendous influences on the society that they have lived among. In the 15thcentury if you were in Spain, that was the most important issue. Jews that supposedly converted to Christianity rose to the highest levels of society and were dominating everything. [Thus] you had anti-Semitism. Certainly in Europe in the 20thcentury and certainly in the late 19thcentury, the Jewish rise to prominence in commerce, in the media, in industry, and everything else had a huge impact on causing tensions in those societies. Nothing has changed there.

So my perception is that the organized Jewish community is moving aggressively ahead. They’re very aggressive. I think that [this is] the typical stance, of especially Eastern European Jews. Paul Gottfried, among many others, says that [there is a difference] between Eastern and Western European Jews. I think you can over-emphasize that. But the reality is that Eastern European Jews seem to be more aggressive, more hostile towards the traditional people and cultures of the world, especially the United States and Europe. And concerned about the history of anti-Semitism and so on. And Jews are especially at the top rung of our society, as Mark was saying. There is no more powerful group that we can single out ethnically in any other way.

When I wrote [my Preface] I said that Jews were 25% of the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans. Well, now it’s more like 37%, and it’s just ten years later. If you’re on that list you’ve got to have at least a billion dollars, around there. So think about it. You’ve got close to 800 billion dollars just among those 137 Jews, or 37% of 400. It’s an enormous amount of money that again, when push comes to shove, would be used against our interests. So this is a very formidable enemy.

The Jewish Question is with us, and anybody who’s not really thinking in those terms [needs to]. You don’t have to talk about it. But if you’re not realizing that this is the 800-pound gorilla in the room when you’re talking about immigration, when you’re talking about multiculturalism, when you’re talking about American foreign policy, this is pretty much the group that you can’t offend. And their interests are not at all the same as ours.

Thank you.

Q&A

Question: What are we doing wrong? I’m looking at Muslim countries, especially Iran, the most obvious example, that have had Jewish minorities living there for centuries, like in Tehran. And yet they don’t run the country. How do they manage that?

KMac: That’s an interesting historical and cultural question. The reality is that Jewish groups were pretty much kept down in Muslim countries. There’s a mythology that Jews and Muslims get along really well, and there’s a multicultural paradise. But in reality, that’s simply not the case. And especially as history ground on, towards the 20thcentury, Jewish populations were very much oppressed in the Muslim world. There was no fear of Jews, and there was no hatred really. It was just that they were to be kept out. The problem in Europe, of course, has been the Enlightenment, and the relative lack of ethnocentrism, universalism, and all these ideals that prevented it. If you go to the Middle Ages, there were certainly times and places Jews had to wear special clothing; they had to be a certain ghetto; they were restricted to certain things. But you stopped seeing that with the Enlightenment, with Jewish emancipation, rising to the top economically, in cultural positions, in the academic world, and so on. That’s been the problem.

Follow up: So I’m assuming you’re saying they keep them out of the professions where they could acquire power?

KMac: Yes. They had very clear group boundaries. And that has happened in Western societies at some times and places, but since the Enlightenment it’s been spottier and spottier, and certainly now if you were to suggest that it would transgress against all Enlightened ideas. You can’t do that.

Question: My question is twofold: I’ve seen increasingly in the past few years a growing number of Jews who are anti-Zionists: Jewish groups who are willing to speak out against the Israel Lobby. I think Mearsheimer and Walt were the beginning of that [which does not imply that they are Jews–Ed.]. I know there is a group called J-Street which is opposing AIPAC, and kind of wants to replace AIPAC. What are your thoughts on that?

The second part of my question is regarding ethno-nationalism. It seems to me that in the end there are two answers to the Jewish Question. One is Theodore Hertzl’s answer, which is that all the Jews go to Israel and they have their own state. If they continue to exist as a Diaspora in White countries there’s always going to be a conflict because they support their own interests. The only other way that we can win aside from sending Jews back to Israel is for something to happen like what happened in World War II. And I just wonder, I’ve been asking myself should White Nationalists support Zionism to some extent, if we can get all the Jews to go back to Israel?

KMac: I actually proposed that, and it angered a lot of people. But the idea was if you could actually get the organized Jewish community behind an anti-immigration thing, and in return we would support Israel, I’d go for that deal. The main thing is getting rid of immigration.

The first one it is true that there have been some high profile articles by, I think David Brooks was one of them, talking about the fact that young Jews are disaffected and disconnected from Israel and less gung-ho. And now within Israel there’s a lot of malaise in Israel economically, people are having a hard time making ends meet, and there’s a lot of difficulties there.

But again I don’t think it’s really affected the source of Jewish power. AIPAC is still AIPAC. J-Street is still a marginal player, at best. And they are not really anti-Israel. They certainly are a softer line on Israel, but they’re still Zionists. I think they want a two-state solution,they’re critical of settlements, and so on. But if you look at the Jewish community in general, when Netanyahu came over and there was a big kerfuffle with Obama and they were at odds with each other, it got papered-over pretty fast. And it hasn’t really changed fundamental US policy. So a lot of this is smoke without really showing any difference in the basic reality of Jewish power, which is firmly behind AIPAC, and AIPAC is firmly behind the right-wing in Israel. They are pro-settler, and basically they’re supporting Israel to the hilt.

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43 Comments

I really liked the music on this podcast. That Moondog really was a fascinating character.
I read about him on wiki.
That utopia sounds good too. My younger son is quite into science and science fiction fiction and believes we will be colonizing outer space. He is my go to guy for science and technology questions. He quit university. Political correctness is in science too. All the more reason to try and change it. Never underestimate the power of a child to change your mind.

I am reading Dr McDonald’s Culture of Critique and I am having a huge ‘knock on the head’.
It is not that I can articulate it now, but I remember university days and thinking this is not true. There is something wrong here, but I did not know what it was. What he says explains alot of experiences that I had and did not have the vocabulary to refute what I was told. I think alot of young people are in that position too. I had one professor who said that Shakespeare’s Cleopatra was likened to a playboy bunny today. Say what? Well, I knew where his head was at. Another who was going to do a class on the Freudian aspects of Hamlet as if Hamlet was lusting after his mother. God I hate Freud. He is the one who said femininity was pathological and masochistic. Then we have de Sade who wanted women to kill the mother. What wonder of the porn now a days and the destruction of relationships between men and women. I am ranting. Sorry

An excellent broadcast pitched in the non-hysterical style of yesteryear and thereby significantly more effective, than what is often the case elsewhere, at getting the message across and getting it to stick, and take hold.

More of the same please…MUCH MORE!

Greg, would it be impertinent of me to ask that you consider posting Bertrand Russell’s 1932 essay; In Praise of Idleness, in support of your own essay; Money For Nothing?

When Kevin described the jews in Iran today, I am reminded of Ezra Pound’s historical footnote about the Byzantine Empire and its’ jewish citizens:

Non-violent formula for controlling the Jews
Mullins’ NEW HISTORY of the JEWS
By Eustace Mullins

（日本語訳：ユダヤ問題解決の 三つの方法 ）

In all of recorded history, there was only one civilization which the Jews could not destroy. Because of this, they have given it the silent treatment. Few American college graduates with a Ph.D. degree could tell you what the Byzantine Empire was.

It was the Empire of East Rome, set up by Roman leaders after the Jews had destroyed Rome. This empire functioned in Constantinople for twelve hundred years, the longest duration of any empire in the history of the world.

Throughout the history of Byzantium, as it was known, by imperial edict, no Jew was allowed to hold any post in the Empire, nor was he allowed to educate the young. The Byzantine Empire finally fell to the Turks after twelve centuries of prosperity, and the Jews have attempted to wipe out all traces of its history.

Yet its edicts against the Jews were not cruel; in fact, the Jews lived unmolested and prosperously in the empire throughout its history, but here alone the vicious cycle of host and parasite did not take place.

It was a Christian civilization, and the Jews were not able to exercise any influence. Nor did the Orthodox priests bewilder their congregations with any vicious lies about Christ being a Jew.

No wonder the Jews want to eradicate the memory of such a culture.

It was Ezra Pound who launched upon a study of Byzantine civilization, and who reminded the world of this happily non-Jewish land.

From the Byzantines, Pound derived his no-violent formula for controlling the Jews.

“The answer to the Jewish problem is simple,” he said.

“Keep them out of banking, out of education, out of government.”

And this is how simple it is.

There is no need to kill the Jews. In fact, every pogrom in history has played into their hands, and has in many instances been cleverly instigated by them.

Get the Jews out of banking and they cannot control the economic life of the community.

Get the Jews out of education and they can not pervert the minds of the young to their subversive doctrines.

I thought of Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness” when I heard Mr. Johnson’s essay too, Henry. Russell is not my favorite historical figure concerning philosophical and political matters for reasons that are probably obvious. (He was often very shallow for a ‘philosopher’ even if he was a genius at ‘mathy’ logic.) However, he does make some half-decent points in The Conquest of Happiness which I believe contains the essay about the blessings of idleness. It’s a very insightful piece as was Dr. Johnson’s Money For Nothing.

Russell lived such a long and active life (as a writer) that as time passed he sometimes contradicted himself by publishing opinions that were diametrically opposed to those he’d held earlier. And of course, his famous pacifism went missing in action when the destruction of National Socialism became, for the so-called democracies, a murderous obsession.

The modern libertarians often claim Bertrand Russell as one of their own. But the views expressed by Russell in his 1932 essay on idleness seem not to be those that one would expect to hear from a precursor to Lew Rockwell & Co, especially coming as they did, at a time when Britain had just jettisoned the Gold Standard.

In fact another favourite of the libertarian clique, Winston Churchill, who in 1925 had been ‘persuaded’ to put Great Britain back on the Gold Standard, also felt, as Russell did, that the gold policy had been a disaster. And so in 1932, Churchill stood up in Parliament and offered this mea culpa in respect of his own folly:

CHURCHILL’S “HIDEOUS OPPRESSION” SPEECH TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

BUDGET PROPOSALS. HANSARD. Vol. 264, 21ST April 1932.

When I was moved by many arguments and forces in 1925 to return to the gold standard I was assured by the highest experts, and our experts are men of great ability and of indisputable integrity and sincerity…that we were anchoring ourselves to reality and stability; and I accepted their advice. I take for myself and my colleagues of other days whatever degree of blame and burden there may be for having accepted their advice. But what has happened? We have had no reality, no stability. The price of gold has risen since then by 70 per cent. That is as if a 12-inch foot rule had suddenly been stretched to 19 or 20 inches, as if the pound avoirdupois [fixed weight] had suddenly become 23 or 24 ounces instead of – how much is it? – 16. Look at what this has meant to everybody who has been compelled to execute their contracts on this irrationally enhanced scale. Look at the gross unfairness of such distortions to all producers of new wealth, and to all that labour and science enterprise can give us. Look at the enormously increased volume of commodities which have to be created in order to pay off the same mortgage debt or loan. Minor fluctuations might well be ignored, but I say quite seriously that this monetary convolution has now reached (such) a pitch where I am convinced that the producers of new wealth will not tolerate indefinitely so hideous oppression…

Like Churchill’s ‘confession,’’ Russell’s essay “In Praise of Idleness” remains an important observation on the madness which ensues when the issue of a nation’s money is decided by the amount of gold held on reserve: notwithstanding the moral failings of its author, I believe it’s an essay that should be read.

The ability to define the Agenda we must live under places us in the position of reacting, to the situations they create, rather than acting to create our own situation.

THIS is why the metapolitical perspective is of such importance, and the Northwest Republic, as the temporal bridge between where we are and the fulfillment of the metapolitical perspective is of such tremendous importance.

Harold Covington, as usual, said it best:

For them to win, they must stop us from asking the right questions. For us to win, we must keep asking the right questions, and act on where they lead us.

All of this, of course, is done in an “apple-pie, strictly legal, sort of way.” (HT: Jim Giles)

Greg, about money. There is an old book, published in 1889, titled as “The Great Red Dragon”, subtitled as ” The Foreign Money Power in the United States”, by L. B. Woolfolk. The entire book is online. Website owner re-typed every single word from the book onto the website for the entire world to see. It was a labor of love. The book mentions the jews frequently.

Click on the “Table of Contents” at the left column of the website to read the book. It includes pic of book cover, too.

Below is an excerpt from “Introduction” from Chap. 1.

Money Power Defined
I do not mean by the Money Power to include any persons possessed of property, who are engaged in independent business enterprise. I do not mean any American business men, or business Companies engaged in independent business enterprise, whether they be farmers, merchants, manufacturers, bankers, miners, builders, or persons engaged in any department of business enterprise.

The Imperialism of Capital to which I allude is a knot of capitalists–Jews almost to a man–who have their headquarters in the Money Quarter of London, in Threadneedle street, Lombard, and other streets in that vicinity, where bankers have their habitat. These Jew capitalists have succeeded in centralizing, in their own hands, the industry and commerce of the earth. They own almost all the debts of the world, the debts of nations, states, counties, municipalities, corporations and individuals, amounting in the aggregate, it is estimated, to seventy-five billion dollars, on which they are annually receiving about four billion dollars of interest [1889].

They own the manufactories, the shipping, and the commerce of Great Britain, and most of the manufactures, shipping and commerce of the whole world. They have attained control of the industry and trade of the whole earth; and are rapidly centralizing all business in their own hands. They hold possession of all the great lines of trade and business of all kinds, and they regulate all prices by their own arbitrary methods. These Jew Money Kings have established a Grand Imperialism of industry, commerce and wealth, which is thoroughly organized, and rules in the sphere of industry and trade with autocratic sway.

Re “money for nothing”. Look, just for the sake of discussion: if the banks were absolutely never to be bailed out with public money, why would we be affected by their fractional reserve banking any worse than buying insurance for our goods.

I can pay $1,000 per year premium on my house & its contents and the insurance co. is immediately at risk – even if my house burns down the next day. (Not that there wouldn’t be one hell of an investigation, mind you.) Of course, you may never get insurance again, after the payout, but that is part of the game in “free enterprise”, isn’t it – they have the right to consider you bad news forever as they are taking the risk.

Also, do you consider you have somehow been cheated because you paid premiums for 40 years on your house but it didn’t burn down, or its contents weren’t burgled? My, my, all that money “wasted” – but wasted only if “peace of mind” doesn’t factor into the things that are important to you.

Does the insurance company keep on hand an amount of cold hard cash equal to the total value of all the property they are insuring? I kind of doubt it but would you consider the insurance biz a sort of fractional reserve system, too?

Yes, our money is at risk, but so is the banks’ under a system of FR banking where there are no bailouts. I say that bailouts are the issue. The banks are gambling that a large segment of their depositors will not descend on them and withdraw everything. We the depositors are gambling that tomorrow and next year, our money will still be there. You say that the bankers never worked for their money in any meaningful sense, that is true. But a viable fraction of depositors never did, either, with them being government or semigovernment employees – “earners” whose lives consisted of damaging and controlling other people’s lives. We have to watch where we keep our money.

Please, folks, I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer here, but please reply.

To “Uh” – on the Money for Nothing text you paid me a compliment. I am sorry it is taking me this long to acknowledge. Thank you. Nice to have a “fan”!

The problem with fractional reserve banking is not that it occasionally produces crises that require government bailouts. The problem is that it puts money creation in the private sector, rather than making it a servant of the common good. On the social credit model, money needs to be created to keep pace with economic production. Money creation is pegged to creating sufficient effective consumer demand to clear the market. Private bankers have no concern with such matters. In fact, economic downturns are good for the capitalist class, because they drive people to bankruptcy and make it possible to acquire real assets at discounted rates.

Greg dealt with the fractional reserve banking part of Stronza’s question. I’ll take a shot at the insurance part. They do overlap in practice.

Stronza in blockquote:

I can pay $1,000 per year premium on my house & its contents and the insurance co. is immediately at risk – even if my house burns down the next day. (Not that there wouldn’t be one hell of an investigation, mind you.) Of course, you may never get insurance again, after the payout, but that is part of the game in “free enterprise”, isn’t it – they have the right to consider you bad news forever as they are taking the risk.

The insurance companies have the best lawyers, accountants and actuaries on their side. They have clauses for everything. On life insurance policies, for example, they have time limits before suicide clauses go into effect. They did not get to be powerful without being ruthlessly smart.

Also, do you consider you have somehow been cheated because you paid premiums for 40 years on your house but it didn’t burn down, or its contents weren’t burgled? My, my, all that money “wasted” – but wasted only if “peace of mind” doesn’t factor into the things that are important to you.

No, you bought insurance against the event, which does have a probability of happening greater than zero. You weren’t “cheated”; after all, the purpose of insurance is to make you whole in the event of an event taking place. “Whole,” as in “break even,” and nothing more.

Does the insurance company keep on hand an amount of cold hard cash equal to the total value of all the property they are insuring? I kind of doubt it but would you consider the insurance biz a sort of fractional reserve system, too?

The insurance companies do, in fact, keep the amount they need to cover all reasonable expectations “on hand” i.e., short term notes, and incredible reserves of all manner of assets.

The only even that would produce a 100% claim and pay-out is a catastrophe beyond calculation. They have a clause that lets them off the hook for that called force majeure – “Acts of God and Kings,” like was, for example.

Yes, our money is at risk, but so is the banks’ under a system of FR banking where there are no bailouts. I say that bailouts are the issue. The banks are gambling that a large segment of their depositors will not descend on them and withdraw everything. We the depositors are gambling that tomorrow and next year, our money will still be there.

This exposure to risk is known, finite, and calculable. Besides, in a time of digital currency moved at light speed, the shortfalls of Bank “A” are quickly dealt with. In fact, routinely, banks lend their excess reserves to one another in the overnight market. If an amount beyond that is needed, Treasury can make that happen instantaneously.

You say that the bankers never worked for their money in any meaningful sense, that is true. But a viable fraction of depositors never did, either, with them being government or semigovernment employees – “earners” whose lives consisted of damaging and controlling other people’s lives. We have to watch where we keep our money.

You are confusing economics with morality, and value systems. The bankers never “worked” for the pure economic profits that they can avail themselves of in fractional reserve, true, but that is the Game, and those are the Rules.

The “government or semigovernment employees” are defined as “valuable” by their employer, whose checks are good enough to cash anywhere. Basic contract law- offer, acceptance, capacity, legality, form – proves these employees are, well, employees. The value is seen in the offer and acceptance of consideration for consideration. The courts will so rule – and get paid, as well!

We have to watch where we keep our money.

All too true.

Sending some of it to counter-currents, each and every month, is an excellent place to “keep” your money. Anything you have left over can go to the Northwest Front!

“if the banks were absolutely never to be bailed out with public money”

The bailouts are a result of the underlying system becoming too greedy – and proof the political elite are owned by the banks – but not the main reason for opposing the current banking system.

The main issue is the banking cartels have created a system identical to legalized counterfeiting – a massive criminal conspiracy and fraud – which under normal conditions slowly and quietly extracts wealth from the public and transfers it to the bankstas and their associates year after year.

You are confusing economics with morality, and value systems. The bankers never “worked” for the pure economic profits that they can avail themselves of in fractional reserve, true, but that is the Game, and those are the Rules.

It was Greg who mentions that the banksters create money out of thin air, and the implication is that this is “immoral”, i.e., unfair. I would say that all the arguments made by everybody here of good will are based on our style of morality – or why should we bother at all. If enough people dislike an economic/banking system it’s because they themselves are suffering a loss, either immediate through repossession of a house by the bank; or by serious reduction in the buying power of the currency. And when you are hurt, something becomes “immoral”. Nobody says, “I was stupid.” Thanks for your comments, Fourmyle!

If enough people dislike an economic/banking system it’s because they themselves are suffering a loss, either immediate through repossession of a house by the bank; or by serious reduction in the buying power of the currency. And when you are hurt, something becomes “immoral”. Nobody says, “I was stupid.” Thanks for your comments, Fourmyle!

Nobody was “stupid,” in the context Greg describes.

The Game was defined in elegant, glowing terms, but there was nothing anyone could do about it.

“Immoral” describes the nature of something; being “hurt” describes the manifested effect of this nature working in the material world.

It is inherently immoral to get “something for nothing”; to wit, money paying interest paid for out of thin air. The “hurt” is seen, and felt, when the money in use becomes devalued, and their standard of living declines. Along those lines, how many people what the bank calls “insurance” – CDS’s – are actually insurance without reserves? Guess who gets to pick up the tab when this is discovered?

Sadly, the public indoctrination school system has turned out the many, many drones it was supposed to have done. Now, they look at The System like sheep wondering where the grass is, but not wondering enough to discover causation, and then, a solution.

They will “hurt,” and they will “hurt” much more when the wolves get to them.

That’s the joy of “democracy,” you know: two wolves and a sheep deciding, by a vote, who’s what’s for dinner.

And when you are hurt, something becomes “immoral”. Nobody says, “I was stupid.”

Read the Churchill quote above for an example of one who did..

It’s more than what is ”morally” right. It’s about conspiracy and deliberate misrepresentation. That’s fraud and that’s a crime. It’s about the theft of your past, present, and future claim on wealth. Something that you worked for, that your parents worked for, and that your children will work for.

Money has no intrinsic value. It represents a measure of entitlement (a claim) for the time and labour you’ve given up, or for goods you’ve exchanged in lieu of payment.

That’s what the banks are stealing from all of us.

As Soddy described it:

What is Money? …Money now is the NOTHING you get for SOMETHING before you can get ANYTHING.

Frederick Soddy: The Role of Money, p. 24

Banks issue fictional loans based on the story of your life. They ask you to give details of your employment, your earning, and your property. They estimate the risk that you represent to them and then permit you to draw up to X amount of credit on account of your own worth.

Once you are Credit Worthy you become the unwitting agent of the banker and let loose in your own community you act as the parasite’s parasite, by converting his credit into an interest bearing debt that can only be drawn from the wealth of your own community.

Because the sum of genuine money within the community is not being inflated relative to the import of credit (debt) this leaves money increasingly short with the result being that ever more people are forced to seek the services of the banker until, eventually, we arrive at the point where he holds a bond against all of us, and all generations to come.

It’s not difficult to demonstrate the extent of the banks hold over us as being one that’s entirely fraudulent. In fact the banks are in a permanent state of insolvency.

For example: The combined domestic and national debt of the US is now $57T yet there’s only $1.3T of legal tender (coin and Fed Notes) available in circulation. Assuming that people are not borrowing money to hoard, it must be obvious that if the banks were not creating ‘money’ then the volume of money lent, could not have exceeded the amount of legal tender available for repayment (and all other purposes) by even one penny, never mind a factor of 43.85. This fact alone shows that the banks are not entitled to the bond that they hold and the wealth that they draw from us by means of that bond.

It also shows that Ron Paul and his band of ‘Austrian’ grifters are lying when they cite the fiat issue of legal tender as the cause of our economic problems, for only by replacing bank created credit with 100% legal tender will we ever solve those problems.

It is our duty to break their bond, not merely as a ”moral” or legal obligation, but as a matter of survival.

Henry, Isn’t, um, er. the dollar already 100% legal tender?I wouldn’t say that Ron Paul is lying but he is a politician and having been in office for so long he is no doubt part of the establishment. He is just another “liberal,” in my humble opinion, but in the world of money he is right in saying that their are too many dollars floating around. The problem that the big boys seem to be having is what to do with the dollar – junk it or bring the troops and industry home and reboot the dollar. Paul seems to be in favour of bringing the troops and industry back home and bringing out a gold backed dollar which would buy more time for multi-cultural America and as “Mr Big” in C-C once said, “We don’t want America to ‘collapse’ just yet for we ain’t ready to come to power. We need more time.” And Ron Paul could give the North American New Right the time we need.

”um, er” I think you should go back and pause awhile on what was posted.

It’s the lack of ”legal tender dollars” that’s the problem not the abundance of them. Because there is no abundance of them. And if creditors insist (as the law provides) that their debts be repaid in legal tender, then debtors will have to foreclose on their loans or force a death run on the banks, as bank created credit (which is not legal tender) outweighs legal tender by a ratio of 57-1….and rising.

Henry, That was a quick reply – you must be really determined to beat me in the race to be our first Finance Minister!!!

So, ahem, er, are you talking about money in people’s hands while I was referring to the total dollars issued-physical and digital. Yes, my mistake and money is not reaching the hands of the people but the number of dollars in circulation are too many and thus are losing value and could potentially become worthless, hence the rise in the gold price.
I don’t think that creditors differentiate between physical (dollar bills and coins from the Treasury) and the digital money from the Fed.
I also am under the impression that the Treasury is by law required to manufacture $1 coins which are currently being warehoused rather than released into circulation giving rise to the speculation that only the digital dollars will be blown off while the Treasury bills and coins will retain value.
I doubt that the present system will not end until the “bankers” own us all.

Yes, my mistake and money is not reaching the hands of the people but the number of dollars in circulation are too many and thus are losing value and could potentially become worthless, hence the rise in the gold price.

Sandy,

Here’s something Ron Paul neglects to tell people like you. It’s how the price of Gold has been ‘fixed’ since 1919:

The price of gold is fixed twice a day in London. This process began in 1919 when the five principle bullion traders came together to form The London Gold Market Fixing Ltd.

Until May 2004, N.M Rothschild had both permanent chairmanship and casting vote of this group which met at the Rothschild HQ in New Court, London. Since 2004 the fix has taken place via telephone.

Process

A tradition of the London gold fixing was that participants could raise a small Union Flag on their desk to pause proceedings. Under the telephone fixing system, participants can register a pause by saying the word “flag”, and the chair ends the meeting with the phrase ‘’there are no flags, and we’re fixed”.

No one knows why Rothschild resigned, but given that; a) only the five most powerful traders can form this group; b) Rothschild’s position as chairman was permanent, and; c) they weren’t forced out: It’s likely that Rothschild took a tactical position where they preferred their omnipotence in gold to be rather less obvious than it had been.

Perhaps they saw a potential for trouble in having the firm of Rothschild ”fixing” the price of gold in the event of a global economy being wedded to a universal gold standard: an insanely dangerous idea but one that’s being pushed by some as the best way forward: and it’s worth noting that the price of Gold has almost tripled since their mysterious resignation.

I doubt that the present system will not end until the “bankers” own us all.

Sandy, they have ”owned” us for decades.

As of Feb 2012:

Population of America : 312,000,000

Available dollars: 1,090,000,000,000

Combined US debt: 57,000,000,000,000

There are $3,494.00 dollars of legal tender per capita available to repay $182,700.00 per capita of US debt (domestic and national). This debt is subject to constant increase through ongoing borrowing and (at various rates) the laws of simple and compound interest. So how, as Ron Paul suggests, will a reduction in real dollars improve this situation when the shortage of those dollars has been the cause of it?

As C.H Douglas said: You do not solve a problem by making it larger.

Leaving domestic debt to one side, US national debt continues to increase at an average rate of $4 Billion per day. The interest on this debt is repaid from income tax and various other taxes/levies: therefore the banks already ‘’own us all’’ because these interest payments are being honoured by elected politicians on behalf of all to the tune of $49,000 per capita, and rising.

Debt is like diabetes. It’s a silent killer. Unfortunately, as with diabetes, many people don’t realise they are suffering from it and so fail to take appropriate action.

Thanks Henry for the info.
They do indeed own us: Rev 13:11 …and no man buyeth their merchandise anymore. And towards the end of the list in verse 13 we read in the list of merchandise, chariots and slaves and souls of men.

You ask, how, as Ron Paul suggests, will a reduction in real dollars improve this situation when the shortage of those dollars has been the cause of it?
I don’t know. I troll for info and one site I found features The hidden meaning behind the $100 bill http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/261.cfm which has Paul as one of the good guys and the plan as backing the dollar with gold. Weir also suggests that America has been stockpiling the stuff for your proverbial 100 years and that many of the off limit military areas (i.e. Chocolate Mountain) and nature preserves are really to hold back resources until required after the rest of the world’s resources have been used up. Whether it is fact or fiction I haven’t a clue but either the dollar goes to zero, the Fed somehow extinguishes many of the outstanding dollars (the six trillion dollars confiscated in Zurich http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com) or finds some gimmick to restore confidence in the dollar.

Its all a bit far out but we live in far out times. I think you are right in that the Rothchilds have taken a low profile position so as to enjoy the fruits of the rise in the gold market without being noticed.

Ron Paul and the Libertarians want the economy to be based on gold and the markets to control the interest rates but now you know exactly who those market controllers are. They don’t belong to our tribe nor do they have our interests at heart.

For Jews Liberty and Gold are two sides of the same coin and both elements need to be present for them to pull off their age-old scam:

For almost all [Jews] America was not Galut. America was the land of liberty, the blessed land, or, in Yiddish,: diegoldene medine, “the golden land.”

While it has been well-documented by now, that even as the campaign of Mitt Romney continues to be funded exclusively by Wall Street legacy firms, that of Ron Paul is largely in the hands of the US military. Yet when it comes to the recently infamous SuperPAC, things have changed. Because as Politico reports, of the roughly $3.4 million total in cash raised by the pro-Paul group Endorse Liberty since its founding on December 20, none other than PayPal cofounder and Clarium Capital chief Peter Thiel has donated $2.6 million. So as the renegade financier, whose opinion on Ben Bernanke and the gold standard is well-known to Zero Hedge regulars emerges as a primary backer of all that is wrong with the status quo, and the Ben Bernanke way of monetary suicide, we wonder who is next? Actually, scratch that: Bill Gross has already made his opinion well known vis-a-vis Ron Paul’s candidacy. Isn’t it about time the Newport Beach multibillionaire reached into his back pocket and put his money where his mouth is, especially following his tongue in cheek endorsement of Ron Paul for president?

So Ron Paul, the King of ”sound money” is being bankrolled by Peter Thiel, the King of ”virtual money”

Peter Thiel, a homosexual but ‘devout catholic’, born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, (the home of the Rothschilds and Schiffs) is also an active member of the current Bilderberg Steering Committee

Here is the current list of the Bilderberg Steering Committee which is overseen by David Rockefeller whose family sponsored the work of Ludwig Von Mises when he came to the US.

In the list Peter Thiel is found four places above David Rockerfeller who is named at the end of the the list.

Governance

Bilderberg is governed by a Steering Committee which designates a Chairman; members are elected for a term of four years and can be re-elected. There are no other members of the Bilderberg conference. The Chair’s main responsibilities are to chair the Steering Committee and to prepare with the Steering Committee the conference program, the selection of participants. He also makes suggestions to the Steering Committee regarding its composition. The Executive Secretary reports to the Chairman.

…Although the project was initially conceived by media cover star Mark Zuckerberg, the real face behind Facebook is the 40-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist and futurist philosopher Peter Thiel. There are only three board members on Facebook, and they are Thiel, Zuckerberg and a third investor called Jim Breyer from a venture capital firm called Accel Partners (more on him later). Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook when Harvard students Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskowitz went to meet him in San Francisco in June 2004, soon after they had launched the site. Thiel now reportedly owns 7% of Facebook, which, at Facebook’s current valuation of $15bn, would be worth more than $1bn. There is much debate on who exactly were the original co-founders of Facebook, but whoever they were, Zuckerberg is the only one left on the board, although Hughes and Moskowitz still work for the company.

Thiel is widely regarded in Silicon Valley and in the US venture capital scene as a libertarian genius. He is the co-founder and CEO of the virtual banking system PayPal, which he sold to Ebay for $1.5bn, taking $55m for himself. He also runs a £3bn hedge fund called Clarium Capital Management and a venture capital fund called Founders Fund. Bloomberg Markets magazine recently called him “one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the country”. He has made money by betting on rising oil prices and by correctly predicting that the dollar would weaken. He and his absurdly wealthy Silicon Valley mates have recently been labelled “The PayPal Mafia” by Fortune magazine, whose reporter also observed that Thiel has a uniformed butler and a $500,000 McLaren supercar. Thiel is also a chess master and intensely competitive. He has been known to sweep the chessmen off the table in a fury when losing. And he does not apologise for this hyper-competitveness, saying: “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.”

But Thiel is more than just a clever and avaricious capitalist. He is a futurist philosopher and neocon activist. A philosophy graduate from Stanford, in 1998 he co-wrote a book called The Diversity Myth, which is a detailed attack on liberalism and the multiculturalist ideology that dominated Stanford. He claimed that the “multiculture” led to a lessening of individual freedoms. While a student at Stanford, Thiel founded a rightwing journal, still up and running, called The Stanford Review – motto: Fiat Lux (“Let there be light”). Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web. Thiel calls himself “way libertarian”.

TheVanguard is run by one Rod D Martin, a philosopher-capitalist whom Thiel greatly admires. On the site, Thiel says: “Rod is one of our nation’s leading minds in the creation of new and needed ideas for public policy. He possesses a more complete understanding of America than most executives have of their own businesses.”

This little taster from their website will give you an idea of their vision for the world: “TheVanguard.Org is an online community of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market and limited government as the best means to bring hope and ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest among us.” Their aim is to promote policies that will “reshape America and the globe”. TheVanguard describes its politics as “Reaganite/Thatcherite”. The chairman’s message says: “Today we’ll teach MoveOn [the liberal website], Hillary and the leftwing media some lessons they never imagined.”

So, Thiel’s politics are not in doubt. What about his philosophy? I listened to a podcast of an address Thiel gave about his ideas for the future. His philosophy, briefly, is this: since the 17th century, certain enlightened thinkers have been taking the world away from the old-fashioned nature-bound life, and here he quotes Thomas Hobbes’ famous characterisation of life as “nasty, brutish and short”, and towards a new virtual world where we have conquered nature. Value now exists in imaginary things. Thiel says that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can find value not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations between human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the world with no restriction. Bloomberg Markets puts it like this: “For Thiel, PayPal was all about freedom: it would enable people to skirt currency controls and move money around the globe.”

Henry,
You certainly know your stuff. It pays to throw in one’s two cents in the comment section for one never knows what will return,
It’s truly a shame that Thiel and his buddies don’t have the jam to turn the good ship America away from the rocks.
I’ll bet ten dollars to a donut that Greg and his buddies will be remembered long after the Thiels of this world.

There is nearly $ 1 trillion of dollars of paper notes in circulation (according to FED data). 70% of it is in overseas. That means there’s 30% in circulation in USA or $ 300 billion. That’s less than $1,000 for each person in USA. No wonder we’re starved for cash.

Richard C. Cook has written good articles on monetary reform and has attended American Monetary Institute conferences.

Just wanted to say how happy I was to see Money For Nothing in audio format. One of my all-time favorite articles written by Johnson.

Paradoxically, even though I believe economics should always hold an inferior, secondary role in relation to cultural/racial well-being, I believe our Third Way economics actually needs to be emphasized due to the economization of man. By describing and arguing for such an economic system as Social Credit you are inherently making the point of economic subservience to man. So many people, even racially aware people, don’t understand how badly the economic indoctrination has flawed their conception of life.

Thanks PC for the interesting links.
Enough material wealth probably is produced to be able to give every adult on the planet a subsistence allowance as Cook suggests although I can’t imagine the powers that be doing that. Getting them to give up the fruits of usury would be akin to going back to pre-Copernicus and admitting that the Earth is stationary and that the Universe is at rest and at peace with itself(I read that last bit in the January issue of Cultural Wars) and that all this constant motion and perpetual change is nonsense.

What concerns me in the here and now is the line that reads:In fact there is a worldwide monetary deflation going on that no one talks about,
I have heard that sentiment somewhere before. The claim was that the smart money was moving into precious metals while the really big boys that live in the stratosphere were accumulating money for the harvest to come.

If I ruled the world I would go for the Social Credit theory of C.H. Douglas but in the meantime staying out of debt and accumulating some silver and a healthy bank account seems best – and a monthly investment with C-C.

As always, highly interesting discussion & debate about money, but no mention on what we do with it. Who wants a stable, viable currency and a social credit system (e.g.) if we are going to be spending so much of it on things that are just not necessary. In my view you ultimately can’t separate the monetary system from how the populace spends their money. You can have reformed money for…what? An economy based on tourism and the manufacture of high quality gewgaws for the intelligentsia?

A few years ago I saw a documentary that suggested – could I make this up – that we should become one big edenic resort and not sully ourselves with things like growing food or manufacturing, as this was too old fashioned, a thing of the “past”. It was just understood that food and other physical necessities would somehow magically always be here for us.

Many beautiful cathedrals were built in medieval England. It was using wooden tally sticks as money. England used it for over 700 years (from approx. 1100 to early 1800’s). The jew-run Bank of England was created in 1694.

Henry,
I just came across the definitive proof that Ron Paul is all that you say he is – and more. It come from http://www.henrymakow.com/ and is found under The Satanic Core of Libertarianism ( (February 26, 2012 ). I am not sure what to make of it but the tie ins with the unknown (to me) Bernard de Mandeville are worth the read.

On the bright side these allegations strengthen the suggestion that he will be the next president and silver will go to…..? Now where did I put that Silver Eagle I set aside for C-C?

I don’t believe in the power of magic but unfortunately there are many who do, and there is ample proof that bad things often happen due to faulty beliefs.

The sick ideas that informed David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”) had no effect in the real world until he (Berkowitz) converted them into physical acts of murder. Similarly, but on a vastly greater scale, when Bush and Blair prayed together in the White House and after consultation with their God, contrived some “ethical” justification for the carnage to be unleashed on Iraq, still nothing came of their ideas until the military converted them into the physical act of War.

Evil does exist, and the fact that evil people may draw their inspiration from abstractions that we may consider ridiculous, must not cause us to dismiss their ideas as harmless or simply eccentric, when, as often is the case, the net result can be terrible if those ideas are acted upon in the real world.

One significant name missing from the article on http://www.henrymakow.com/ is that of Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a seminal influence on Hess, Menger, Mises and Hayek, all of whom were mentioned. The claim that there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” and that things “just are” is a product of Spinoza’s philosophy, which predates Bernard de Mandeville’s own work and is drawn from occult Judaism.

When Spinoza’s Master, the Free Trade rabbi, Manasseh Ben Israel, was busy with Cromwell reopening England to the Jews, Spinoza (still in Holland) exposed “heretical” aspects of Jewish thought to the goyim, thereby putting his fellow Jews in danger. For this he was excommunicated from his own community and his coreligionists made at least one attempt against his life.

…..the main object of the excommunication was to disavow on the part of the community any participation in Spinoza’s pernicious views, and was a natural precaution on the part of a set of men only recently released from persecution on account of their opinions and only half trusting in the toleration of the authorities of the land. At the same time there is no doubt that considerable feeling was aroused by Spinoza’s views, and it is reported that a fanatical Jew even raised a dagger against him as he was leaving either the synagogue or the theatre. Freudenthal suggests that this happened during an altercation with Spinoza himself.

The concept of the “victimless crime” where no physical harm was done is an extension of Spinoza’s ethos thrust directly into the modern world, especially the world of finance and commerce, and recently Michael Hoffman produced another example with a quote from a rabbi who turned the moral tables on those that hold the traditional view that sodomy is wrong and openly condemn it:

Rabbi David Greenstein of Congregation Shomrei Emunah, a Conservative congregation in Montclair, New Jersey, compared opponents of gay marriage to inhabitants of Sodom.

“The real sin of Sodom,” he said, citing the Talmud, is “to be opposed to someone deriving a benefit where their derivation of benefit causes no harm. People opposed to this bill are the true Sodomites.”

This notion of “derivation of benefit” that Rabbi David Greenstein used in the quote above is often cited by Ron Paul and his friends as justification for why we should tolerate almost every known vice: from usury to drug abuse to prostitution and pornography. In fact, they go further than simply saying that an individual may “derive benefit” from these practices, claiming that by engaging in these lifestyles they are actually creating and supporting other forms of “industry.” An alternative “marketplace” which in turn boosts the economy.

In other words: in the Libertarian marketplace, there’s no harm in creating work for loan sharks, pimps, and pushers because it’s a positive thing when there’s a demand for their services.

I have always considered libertarianism as a rationalization for what the Elites want to do for themselves, and what they want us to do for them – smoke dope, pay taxes, be victims, and get out of their way. You will recognize the last formulation from Galt’s Speech, in “Atlas Shrugged.”

The larger issue, metaphysically speaking, is their definition of “Good,” which is “the absence of wrong.”

The more accurate definition, certainly from the perspective of the Civilizationist’s perspective, is this:

“Good is not the absence of wrong. Good is something better, and ‘good enough,’ never is.”

That’s a critical element of the correct metapolitical perspective. There is nothing better than ‘better,’ and their is no substitute for ‘better.'” This critical focus on intelligent, directed, focused achievement is vitally necssary for us.

Here’s one for the Luciferian and illuminist watchers over at Henry Makow:

Ron Paul’s largest sponsor (by far) is Peter Thiel. When Thiel was a student at Stanford he founded the The Stanford Review which has the very Luciferian motto: Fiat Lux – Let there be Light and after graduating Thiel became a “fan” of Leo Strauss.

Thiel founded the Stanford Review in 1987. Its motto: Fiat Lux (Latin for “Let there be light.”) A number of the Review’s crew ended up at PayPal with Thiel prior to the IPO. The Review not only still exists but is currently the main conservative newspaper on campus.[…]One of the former editors, David Sacks, proudly states that, “The Stanford Review stood for free speech, no speech code and the keeping of the great scholarly works in the curriculum. Sacks eventually joined Thiel at PayPal and helped bring it to preeminence.

After graduating in 1989, Peter decided on law school at his alma mater. Still hanging out with his pal, Sacks, they became fans of Leo Strauss, the philosopher considered to be the father of neo-conservatism….

Peter Thiel is also an admirer of George Soros and follows his bloodsucking strategies:

Peter Thiel has stayed more to his investment expertise, patterning Clarium after the former Quantum Fund, formerly managed by investment guru, George Soros, who had a great run with his macro hedge fund. Using macroeconomic theorems to uncover winning trades, macro funds trade Eurodollars, Asian bonds, crude oil, commodity futures and just about anything else for which there is an viable market.

The hedge fund arena was formerly dominated by super macro managers like Soros and Julian Robertson. In the early 1990’s, over 70% of the $39 Billion in the industry were managed in macro funds. But first the dot-com frenzy, then the high tech bull market caused many investors to forsake hedge funds and move their money to the more glamorous Nasdaq exchange. However, Thiel is still committed to many of the principles that made Soros into a billionaire.

For instance, Soros made millions betting that the British government would devalue the pound back in 1992. Using similar techniques, Thiel buys U.S. Treasury bonds and energy stocks, also betting on deflation accompanied by higher oil prices. With recent annualized returns in the 26% range, Clarium is considered one of the world’s best macro funds as rated by Hedge Fund Research, Inc. in Chicago.

It is ironic that the high tech arena made Thiel rich and did serious damage to the hedge fund industry. For example, Soros lost major dollars when Nasdaq bottomed out, while Robertson lost billions and just stopped managing other people’s money altogether believing he simply didn’t understand market tendencies any longer. Yet, Thiel still believed in the viability and success opportunities in the hedge fund industry, a commitment that has proven to be well founded.

No one knows whether Thiel foresaw the dramatic changes that took place in the hedge fund industry or whether it was just another example of him following his famous hunches. Currently, Wall Street companies and fund managers administrate much more hedge fund money that the giants Soros or Robertson ever imagined. The top 20 manage over $320 Billion, almost 25% of the entire industry. While, macro-style funds now control less than 12% of industry assets.

The hedge fund client base has also shifted rather dramatically. Once the purview of rich individuals, with or without ownership in closely held companies, now pension funds, insurance conglomerates, and private/university endowments are also major players. They apparently believe that a well-managed hedge fund will provide the consistent returns, in both good and bad markets, to allow them to keep the sacred promises they have made to their benefactors. The common denominator always remains consistent: Large institutional investors would rather make a smaller profit while being subject to smaller risk than possibly making a lot along with the inherent higher risk.

But Thiel still believes, as Soros and Robertson did, that vast fortunes can me made if you’re willing to gamble big stakes on your educated view of the world economy and the techniques you have developed to win large in this arena. For instance, Thiel literally wagered all of his client’s assets that the fallout from the boom of the 1990’s would hurt the U.S. and provide new opportunities. He assumed the housing apex would collapse with rising interest rates while the price of crude oil would skyrocket. To date, his view has been correct.

Henry, you never disappoint. Thank you for the succinct explanation The claim that there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” and that things “just are” is a product of Spinoza’s philosophy, and thanks for tying it in with Mandeville. I had never thought of Manasseh Ben Israel, as a Free Trade rabbi. Very good.